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Founded in 2014 by bringing together researchers from C2RMF and ENSCP Chimie ParisTech, the Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Témoins de l’Histoire (PCMTH) team brings together a wide range of scientific skills and knowledge with the aim of studying cultural heritage materials from the atomic scale to the macrostructure.
Thanks to an assertive interdisciplinary approach – drawing on the human and social sciences as well as the hard sciences and technology – its research contributes to fulfilling the fundamental missions of the French Ministry of Culture and the CNRS: to understand, conserve and promote heritage in order to pass it on more effectively.
Analyzing the forms of relationship with the past generated by heritage, it is also interested in its future, through the growing awareness of conservation imperatives and the impact of climate change, as well as the development of responsible analytical techniques and chemical formulations. Precious, complex and produced under conditions that are often poorly understood, historical objects also require the development of analogues dedicated to a dynamic study of the system and the uncovering of forgotten processes.
This approach reveals structures and mechanisms that are often unknown, and contributes to the development of the physical chemistry of solids. This dual contribution to fundamental and applied heritage science is reflected in a multi-faceted scientific output.